Flower Show

Judging from the crowds visiting the Maryland Home & Flower Show at the Timonium Fairgrounds, a similar turnout next weekend should push attendance over the 100,000 mark, show organizers said.That would top last year's record of 70,000 easily. The annual event has been held in the fairgrounds' Cow Palace and Exhibit Hall for one weekend only for the past four years.The 1996 show features 450 exhibitors -- mostly home improvement and landscaping contractors, florists, craftsmen, artists and educators -- and is "definitely better than in past years," said Brenda Spowart of Perry Hall.

THESE DAYS, we're all eagerly looking for any sign of spring. The calendar tells us winter is almost over, and stores are stocked with Easter goodies and spring clothes. But the weather outside seems to be an endless parade of cold, gray, drizzly days.Mount Airy Garden Club is taking advantage of these last winter days to prepare for its long-awaited flower show later this year. Club members are planning and preparing their gardens, studying and experimenting with new growing techniques and visiting gardens in the area.

It's time to get out and smell the flowers. The flower-show season is upon us, and whether you have a green thumb or not, it's a great time to think spring.There may be no better place to head than to Philadelphia, home of the country's oldest flower show, where this year the entire city is celebrating with more than 50 programs at museums, restaurants, hotels, theaters and stores. The Philadelphia show also has a new home, the Pennsylvania Convention Center, and an earlier than usual date, Feb. 25-March 3."

London -- Yo, anyone have a spare ticket for the Chelsea Flower Show?Ask a question like that, and a guy who is dressed in black from head to toe and who calls himself John puts down his cellular telephone, arises from a table at a swanky sidewalk cafe near ever-so-fashionable Sloane Square, whips out a ticket and demands $56, which is only $20 above the face value.There are no negotiations."This is a hot one, mate," says John, a ticket scalper who normally works the soccer and rock concert crowds, but who once a year realizes there is a lot of money to be made on flowers.

For those wondering what to get mom for Mother's Day, the Union Mills Homestead flower, plant and antiques show tomorrow and Sunday should provide some ideas for a gift.This year marks the 26th flower and plant show, which traditionally has opened the season at Union Mills Homestead.The antiques show will celebrate its fifth year at the event.Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. The homestead, which dates to 1797, is at 3311 Littlestown Pike, seven miles north of Westminster.

If the weather has you down, just remember that spring is around the corner. Sure signs are the announcements of flower shows, garden parties and garden tours to come.Let's begin with the World's Largest Garden Party, which will take place throughout spring in the Delaware Valley (eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware), home of more public gardens than anywhere in North America and rivaled only by London as the world's premier garden showcase. The garden party encompasses 28 institutions, including Longwood Gardens.

Carol A. Donovan has been giving parties in Westminster for 10 years without ever wanting the music to stop or the balloons to come down. So it won't be easy for her to move on.City-sponsored parties were continually on the calendar -- Easter egg hunts, teen dances, Concerts in the Park, the Muscular Dystrophy carnival, Fallfest.When no party was scheduled, she thought of one -- the Flower and Jazz Festival, the Daddy-Daughter date, a giant Christmas card in 1985 for President Ronald Reagan that was signed by more than 9,000 Westminster-area residents.

If you thought it would be at least nine months before you had to think about Christmas again, you didn't know about Christmas in April.This volunteer organization undertakes minor rehabilitation projects and major repairs for some of Anne Arundel County's elderly and disabled people who are unable to get help through normal channels.Christmas in April is in its 21st year nationally, and its second year in Anne Arundel County. The local organization's president, Brooke Perkins of Eastport, spearheads a drive that identifies the houses and apartments that will be worked on, solicits donations of materials and supplies, enrolls hundreds of volunteers, and raises money to cover out-of-pocket expenses.

Two decades ago, Harford County was a rural farming community, far removed from metropolitan Baltimore. Bel Air, the county seat, was a sleepy town, surrounded by mid-sized farms and dense stands of hardwood trees. Until a few years ago, a small herd of dairy cows could be seen grazing on a farm a few hundred yards from busy Harford Mall.That farm is now a huge shopping center. A few miles away, on new Route 24, thousands of homes, condos and apartments cover land previously inhabited by whitetail deer, ring-neck pheasant, gray squirrel, bobwhite quail, fox, raccoon, opossum and nearly 50 species of birds.

One sure sign that spring is just around the corner is the opening of the Philadelphia Flower Show next Sunday. It's the world's largest indoor flower show, attracting an ever-growing number of garden lovers from all over the country and abroad.The show will be held at the Philadelphia Civic Center through March 14. Landscape designers will turn six acres of the Civic Center complex into a floral fantasy. Upon entering the show, you step into the "Lion Parterre" of the Great Garden of Pitmedden, one of the treasures of the National Trust for Scotland.